Research Library Issues, no. 280 (Sept. 2012)
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RLI 280 e-bOOk licensing and ReseaRch libRaRies—negOtiating pRinciples and pRice in an eMeRging MaRket 16 SEPTEMBER 2012 RESEARCH LIBRARY ISSUES: A QUARTERLY REPORT FROM ARL, CNI, AND SPARC Notwithstanding any terms or conditions to the contrary in any author agreement between Authors and Licensor, Authors affiliated with Licensee whose work (“Content”) is accepted for publication within the Licensed Materials shall retain the non-exclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free right to use their Content for scholarly and educational purposes, including self-archiving or depositing the Content in institutional, subject-based, national or other open repositories or archives (including the author’s own web pages or departmental servers), and to comply with all grant or institutional requirements associated with the Content. For the avoidance of doubt, it is the intent of the parties to this agreement that Authors are third party beneficiaries of this provision of the Agreement. Aggregators do not have these rights to grant and the resulting agreement does not address this provision. The rights are managed between the author and the e-book publisher and could only be negotiated if the publishers in the aggregation have them. Since authors manage rights for articles differently than monographs, author and publisher education may be needed in order for research libraries to be able to include this provision. Next Steps Some important business and technical requirements could not be met for the first license, but the provider agreed to address them in the next year’s offering: • The business model offered was a collection-based model, which does not meet the needs of all research libraries. Libraries expressed the need for title-by-title selection options. Subsequent to the licensing process, the vendor developed and implemented the title-purchase capability. • The linking of current collection management activities through vendor-approval plans to avoid title duplication is needed. As with title selection, this capacity has now been put in place. • Some libraries desire a demand-driven purchase option. • More e-book content that represents a higher percentage of the total publisher output would increase research library interest in the overall package. • Interlibrary loan was a chapter-by-chapter solution and a new short-term lending option is in development to allow whole-book lending. Negotiations for the next year’s license for the UPCC collections have begun. Other university press e-book publishers and aggregations learned of the ARL project and have contacted the agent. They too were given the opportunity to respond to the principles and rights terms identified in the “ARL E-Book Requirements” before any negotiations took place. Negotiations were completed with both Oxford University Press for University Press Scholarship Online and De Gruyter for the Harvard University Press eBooks. A positive response from both publishers led to these new offerings for ARL members. ARL considers the initial project quite successful and accordingly will continue to pursue future opportunities.